Is Smoking Associated with Injury in Military Training?

Training for the Royal Marines (RMs) is considered to be one of the most arduous military training regimes in the world. Approximately 16% of the annual intake of recruits suffer an injury. Smoking has been found to be a predisposition to injury.

Objective

To examine the relationship between recruits’ smoking status on entry to training and subsequent incidence of injury.

A significantly greater proportion of RM recruits who were smokers on entry to training experienced a physical injury during the course than their non-smoking counterparts (chi-square = 8.15, P < 0.01). A recruit who smoked on entry to training was almost twice as likely to acquire an injury during training [relative risk = 1.7 (95% CI = 1.2-2.8)].

Conclusion

Smoking status of RM recruits in training was significantly associated with injury.